From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 06/06
Date: 1996/06/07
Message-ID:
X-Deja-AN: 158940572
sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner)
organization: University of Waterloo
newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
Wrestling TidBits
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pictures of the Week
This week's picture is a collage featuring the 04/29/96 match with the
Steiners & Scott Norton vs. The Road Warriors & Power Warrior (Kensuke
Sasaki).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ - ] The Southern Ontario version of Nitro airs on tape on Saturday and
runs one hour. This past weekend, we got to see the two Razor Ramon
walk-ons that caused such excitement last week. While it's easy to see why
WWF-exclusive fans are upset, the angle deserves praise, if only because
it's the right thing to do with Scott Hall (& Kevin Nash to follow) to make
the most money.
A copy of the WWF's letter to Scott Hall was posted this week. It would
seem that the WWF thinks that Hall cannot retain any of the Razor Ramon. Is
wearing jeans and a jean vest dressing like Razor Ramon? That hardly seems
legitimate. Hall himself has pointed out that many of Razor Ramon's
character traits were part of the Diamond Studd's character (Hall's WCW
character before jumping to the WWF). These include the hair, the
toothpick, the finishing move, and calling himself "the Bad Guy"; hence,
WCW would seem to have a legitimate case in having him retain all of these
characteristics. The questionable things are the name, the ring attire, the
gold chains, and the accent. WCW has never said his name, we don't know
about his new ring outfit, I haven't seen Razor's gold, but...the accent is
there. Can the WWF own rights to the accent? Apparently, Eric's legal team
thinks that would be a questionable claim. The Observer suggests that there
is a plan for Hall's WCW name to be "The Bad Guy," a name that I had
suggested immediately last week as something that the WWF can't have
control over.
This past week on RAW, Vince briefly mentioned that Razor Ramon and Diesel
were no longer with the WWF and that they may pretend to be the superstars
that they once were in the WWF. He spoke the couple of sentences during the
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Jake Roberts match presumably to make it seem
like this wasn't that big of a deal, that it was more a passing thought.
This should hardly slow Eric Bischoff down. If he keeps Hall's & Nash's new
gimmick as close to their WWF gimmicks as legally possible and continues to
book them as outside invaders, Vince will have to do much more to hurt the
large draw that this angle should have.
Talk continues that the third WWF-to-WCW star will be Jeff Jarrett, Bam Bam
Bigelow, Davey Boy Smith or Lex Luger. It would a good angle, I think, to
have Luger not be one of the three, but have him be the surprise fourth
that helps the three beat three of WCW's finest. Imagine Luger cheerleading
for Sting in his match against Ramon only to trip him and cause the cheap
finish. There is even some potential for good matches with Ramon & Jarrett
involved. It would be good if the three or four ex-WWF guys are treated
like heels while all of WCW's roster are treated like faces in
"inter-promotional" matches. There is a lot of possibility for hatchets to
be temporarily buried, etc., while fueling this story-line. Even better,
bring in Men On a Mission (as Dudes on A Down-low? D.A.D. "Now wave your
hands in the air, wave them like you just don't care. If you're waving to
and for with Dudes on A Down-low, somebody say oh-yeah!" ;-)) and the
Quebecers and promote them similarly as ex-WWF guys coming to settle the
score in the war.
[ - ] The CBC ran a 20-25 minute segment on the National Magazine (a 60
Minutes style segment on their nightly news) on Monday debvoted to
the UFC. It was a mixed bag, but a little more positive than anything else
I've seen on the subject. Hana Gartner (I believe that's how she spells it)
was very negative to start, saying something like, "If you saw it on a
street corner you'd likely call the police, but on pay-per-view television
it's one of the hottest tickets going." They showed an edited clip where a
coach said he didn't consider an event where people try to knock each out
to be sport (later, when his entire interview ran, he include boxing and
other events with that criticism). The focus of the show was the scheduled
Dave Beneteau vs. Gary Goodridge match, since both fighters are Canadian.
They interviewed each fighter and followed them around, including to their
training. Both guys came off as smart athletes, not mindless brutes, so
this was good. Gary's coach pointed out that only people that understand
the skills required in this event can easily see that there is nothing
barbaric about the event. The first half of the segment ended behind the
scenes during referee John McCarthy's session with the fighters, where he
runs down the rules. Earlier, Beneteau had passed the physical and admitted
to his broken wrist (heavily taped during the training footage). Word
spread and Beneteau was checked again and dumped from the event. They
pointed out that Beneteau had spent a lot of his own money on promoting
himself and the event locally and that he essentially lost all of it. They
showed highlights from Goodridge vs. Mark Shultz and behind the scenes
stuff afterwards where Shultz congratulated Goodridge for giving him such a
good fight, while Goodridge just joked that he only took punishment. They
ended the whole thing by saying that Shultz earned $10K for his fight. In
the end, because they let Goodridge, Beneteau, and the coaches speak, the
piece had some balance.
[ - ] The Road Warriors have quit WCW, most likely because of money
squabbles. I may be in the minority, but I don't think it's much of a
loss, since they've been rather disappointing for a long time. Have you
honestly ever seen a line-up including a match with them and thought, "Wow,
that match should be good?" I sure haven't.
[ - ] With Davey Boy Smith abruptly giving notice to the WWF, it's amazing
how quickly Vince changed the focal point of the whole angle. The
whole "Attempted Alienation of Affection" angle was dropped in favour of
Clarence Mason suing Gorilla Monsoon for assault (surely, this is all meant
to position Vader).
The Observer mentions that Vince is feeling the heat as guys leave for WCW.
It's the same old story. Vince offered some of the new guys (Mero,
presumably Pillman) contracts with perqs that the regulars don't have and
they are miffed.
[ - ] WCW has Great American Bash on 06/16/96. Line-up has:
* Giant vs. Lex Luger for the WCW Title
* Konnan vs. El Gato for the US Title
* Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs. Steve McMichael & Kevin Greene
* Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight Title
* Steve Regal vs. Sting
* Diamond Dallas Page vs. Marcus Alexander Bagwell
* Booty Man vs. Hugh Morrus
* Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit in a falls count anywhere match
Word is that Great Muta, originally scheduled to face Page, was pulled by
New Japan who didn't want him putting over a wrestler with no status in
Japan.
[ - ] The WWF has King of The Ring on 06/23/96. Line-up includes:
* Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith for the WWF Title
* Smoking Gunns vs. Godwinns for the WWF Tag Titles
* Goldust vs. Ahmed Johnson for the IC Title
* Ultimate Warrior vs. Jerry Lawler
* Undertaker vs. Mankind
* The semifinals and finals of the King of the Ring tournament
The KotR tournament brackets look like this:
Ultimate Warrior --\
|-- None --\
Goldust --/ \
|-- Vader --\
Ahmed Johnson --\ / \
|-- Vader --/ \
Vader --/ \
|-- --\
H.O.G. --\ / \
|-- Hawk --\ / \
Justin Bradshaw --/ \ / \
|-- Jake --/ |
Jake Roberts --\ / |
|-- Jake --/ |
Hunter Helmsley --/ |
|-- KotR
Bob Holly --\ |
|-- Steve --\ |
Steve Austin --/ \ |
|-- Steve --\ |
Savio Vega --\ / \ /
|-- Savio --/ \ /
Marty Jannetty --/ \ /
|-- --/
Yokozuna --\ /
|-- Owen --\ /
Owen Hart --/ \ /
|-- Mero --/
Skip --\ /
|-- Mero --/
Marc Mero --/
Not all of the above matches have aired on TV, but there are the taped
results. So, it looks more and more like Vader vs. Mero in the main event,
presumably with Vader going over to feud with Michaels next. It's atrocious
to see Jake in the final four.
[ - ] [RAW] beat [Nitro] on 05/20 with a 2.3 rating (4.5 share) against a
3.1 rating (4.7 share). It's important to note that Nitro was on earlier
than usual. The Monday ratings show a pretty even battle to date.
[ - ] The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the
WWF has an average buy rate of 0.80 (0.75) and average gross of
$2.09-million ($1.72-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.55
(0.57) and average gross of $1.59-million ($1.59-million). The details are
an interesting read.
[ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 07/21/96.
[ - ] WCW has Quake At The Lake on 07/07/96.
[ - ] WCW has a PPV on 08/11/96.
[ - ] WCW has Clash of Champions XXXIII on 08/14/96.
[ - ] The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/18/96.
[ - ] WCW has Fall Brawl 09/15/96.
[ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 09/22/96.
[ - ] WCW has Halloween Havoc 10/27/96 from Caeser's Palace. It will be an
outdoor show.
[ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 10/20/96.
[ - ] The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/17/96.
[ - ] WCW has World War III 11/24/96.
[ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 12/15/96.
[ - ] WCW has Starrcade on 12/29/96.
[ - ] WWW: My home page is at http://barrow.uwaterloo.ca/~hekunze. The
wrestling portion includes this post, tape lists, awards history,
Japanese wrestling stuff, and other things.
[ - ] Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If
you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click here to return.
E-mail: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca